


Painting Shenanigans

by LovingAlex



Series: Domestic AF [6]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, Living Together, M/M, Moving, Painting, Renovations, Silly, shenanigans all around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-05-14 05:03:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19266409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovingAlex/pseuds/LovingAlex
Summary: Merlin and Arthur finally FINALLY move out of their tiny apartment and into an actual house.... But there's a lot of work to do before they can call this house their home.





	Painting Shenanigans

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this one has a good bit more world building and such in it. Writing the outline for this lead to quite a few little epiphanies for the series altogether. In other words, I might have more to add to this Domestic AF AU than I first planned XD At first it was 10 parts, now it's 12... whoops

After a long debate, the two decide to buy a house. They’re married now, it’s what normal married couples do. There’s no way they could live in their tiny dorm-like apartment anymore. It would suck having to leave the life they’ve lived for the past few years, but it was time for them to grow and move on.

 

(And this was totally not cause their lease was almost up and they didn’t feel like renewing it…)

 

Arthur uses his loaded savings account and  _ amazing  _ credit score to get them in good with the realtors. Together, they found a nice two story, three bed, two bath house on the edge of the suburbs closest to the city. Close enough for a short commute to the Pendragon offices, and they could easily turn the third bedroom into an office for Merlin’s own stay at home businesses. 

 

You would think Merlin would have became some high end scientist with all his chemistry, geology and biology degrees, but no, instead he invents lotions and soaps and makes special  _ jewelry  _ that has different, supposedly helpful, rocks… Arthur never understood the whole rock meanings thing, but whatever, at least Merlin’s business is booming. 

 

With some help from the Pendragon Marketing and Communications Consultancy of course. Arthur wouldn’t just leave his husband hanging and not support his endeavors. He wasn’t that bad of a person. No matter what Merlin says, they both know that Arthur is actually A+ husband material even with some of his faults included.

 

\---

 

At first glance, the house seems a little big for just the two of them and a lizard, but they didn’t mind. They still had a whole lifetime ahead of them to fill in any gaps. Repurposing the one bedroom into a workroom wasn’t their only plans for the house. Had a whole to-do list.

 

The walls, for one, left much to be desired. The first thing they do after officially become homeowners, is break in their new kitchen with a good romp (Yes, very sanitary, they know. Merlin complains, but at least they had room compared to their old kitchen), then head to Home Depot to get their needed supplies. 

 

The two get the paint last, which leads to a big debate on what colors to get. Probably should have talked about it beforehand, but that was rarely their style.

 

“I say we should get these two,” Arthur holds up two swatches, one is of different burgundy reds, and the other has one color the named “buttercup gold.” 

 

Merlin puts a placating hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “I know you’re a proud Gryffindor, but I refuse to live in the Gryffindor common room. How about these instead?” He picks out some greys, dark blues, and neutral tans.

 

“Oh, so you just want Ravenclaw instead.” 

 

“Nuh uh, I’m Hufflepuff and you know it! I just think these suit better for wall colors and such ...” Merlin trails off, comparing his different swatches with each other to see what the best combinations were.

 

“Mine are still better than being insipid,” the blond huffs.

 

“Oooh big words for such a small dollophead.”

 

“I’m not a dollophead! That isn’t even a word!”

 

“Either way you are one and we’re not doing Gryffindor walls.” Merlin crosses his arms stubbornly. 

 

The girl working the mixing counter clears her throat to get their attention. “The bickering is cute and all, but why not just do a compromise of all the colors?” she suggests. 

 

The two stare at her, then each other, then back at her. “That’s a great idea,” Merlin admits. 

 

After a good while of discussion and continuously asking the worker for her opinion, the two settle on a few different color schemes that will be spread around the house but in a way they’ll still fit together cohesively.

 

Tans and yellows, greys and dark blues, burgundies and light blues, all in alternating rooms and more dulled down hues than before so that it doesn’t make people’s eyes hurt after a few minutes.

 

Over the next few days the two of them move more and more things from their old place into their new house. There some boxes laying around and they’ve set up the bare minimum to live in the new house as it is now.  Once the water is turned on, they set up the house to begin painting. On Arthur’s next day off, the two of them set to work remodeling.

 

They paint Merlin’s office first so they can get the furniture in there and out of the way. After, Merlin moves onto the guest room while Arthur does the master bedroom.

 

Merlin finishes first and makes them an oven cooked pizza. They found really good frozen pizzas at Walmart for cheap and have been using them instead of delivery ever since. It’s saved them a lot of money and time when they were busy studying. Just get a handful while grocery shopping, toss them in the oven when they needed instead of trying to decide what pizza place, what to get, and having to deal with pizza delivery people. Of course they’ve burned them a few times due to forgetting about it, but even when they’re burnt they still taste good.

 

Said amazing frozen pizza is just about done when Arthur comes down from finishing up their bedroom. 

 

They eat, joke around, and have a good grind against each other before moving on to the living room. The last places to do were the living room, dining room, a bit of the kitchen that they were saving till last, and the side room that had a whole wall made up of windows that faced their new yard. It was similar to a porch, but indoors (though they also had a back patio that the windows looked over). Definitely Merlin's favorite room of the house and what had been the deciding aspect of them choosing this house in particular. He couldn’t wait to put some cozy seating, maybe a few side tables. The indented wall with built in bookshelves will look amazing once Merlin fills it with his old book collection.

 

The yard work --they had a  _ yard of their own _ , it’s mind blowing-- was for another day. The painting would make them way too worn out and take too much time to do it all in one day.

 

The plastic paint tarp crinkles under their feet, protecting the nice wood floor from the mess they’re most likely to leave. 

 

They were doing pretty good at keeping things clean until Merlin accidentally splattered a bit of blue paint on Arthur’s head as the man bent down to get more paint on his roller. 

 

Arthur’s hand freezes halfway to the pan. Merlin stands just as still, not knowing what the blond might do to him.

 

Slowly, he raises his head. Arthur’s blank face is more terrifying than if he was mad. It’s almost impossible to know what the man was planning when he went scary quiet.

 

Arthur takes his roller and plops it onto Merlin’s head, then rolls it towards himself. Down Merlin’s forehead and nose. He scrunches up his face as the medium toned grey coats his nose and up. At least Arthur hadn’t had the chance to add more paint to his roller yet, so there wasn’t much left on it to leave behind.

 

Arthur goes back to what he was doing, slapping his roller into the grey pan and splattering a bit of it out onto the sheet. “What’s the matter  _ Mer _ lin? You’re looking a bit grey.” he comments flatly like nothing happened. That prat.

 

A beat passes with Arthur rolling paint onto the wall and Merlin frozen. Gently, Merlin wraps his hands around his roller then sets it back in it’s respected pan. 

 

“Oh, how sweet to ask, Arthur, but I do believe I should be asking how  _ you _ are instead,” he makes his way over to Arthur and gently slaps a blue paint covered hand on each of Arthur’s cheeks. “You’ve been looking a little  _ blue _ lately…” He rubs his thumbs across the man’s cheek bones and lets his hands slide down Arthur’s neck a bit. Just spreading the paint around and rubbing it in for good measure.

 

Arthur is silent at first, then a dark chuckle builds up in his chest. “Is that how you want to play it?” he asks before scraping a blob of grey off his own roller. With one hand, he lovingly pulls Merlin’s paint splattered neckerchief off, with the other, he sloppily splatters the grey all over Merlin’s collar bones, neck, and moving up towards his face. Merlin slaps his hands away. 

 

Thus starts their paint war. Paint splashes, colors splatter, the two men get coated, erupting into laughter as they have their fun.

 

In the end, they have a long and adoring romp right there on the plastic.

 

\---

 

They don’t finish the painting till the next day, deciding to leave the bit of splatter pattern on the one living room wall like their own little mark on the house. Made a good accent wall at least. The two of them each put a hand print next to each other near one of the corners as a type of signature. It was their house now and no one could take it away from them.

 

The day after finishing everything is when they finally notice the little lizard footprints that run from the living room, to the kitchen, to the stairs. Arthur complained halfheartedly, but Merlin just laughed, saying that it was Kilgarrah leaving his own mark. At least the damn lizard will be kept in Merlin’s office now instead of their bedroom.

 

This was their life now. Their house, and they were gonna fill it with as many memories as they could. Good and bad. They’ll make it through them all.

**Author's Note:**

> This didn’t take me that long to write up, so I was able to put more effort into outlining the other stories. RN I'm working on outlining the 10th installment, but it'll take longer than the rest due to it's nature... 
> 
> Hopefully I'll be able to finish outlining them all soon so I can be quicker with writing them out and have more of a stockpile to assure that I can upload on time UwU


End file.
